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Monday, November 28, 2016

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump claimed Sunday that he not only won the electoral vote but the popular vote as well, if the “millions” of “illegal” votes cast for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in the Nov. 8 election are deducted from the tally.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” wrote Trump on Twitter, referring to the vote recount effort in three states being headed by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

In the Nov. 8 election, Trump apparently garnered at least 270 electoral votes, which technically is all that is required to win the presidency regardless of whether or not a candidate wins the popular vote.

Trump won 290 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232, with the votes from Michigan still untallied, although Clinton beat the New York mogul by at least two million votes in the popular vote.

In his tweet, one of several that Trump has fired off in the wake of the Clinton campaign’s stating it will “participate” in the recount effort, the magnate offered no proof of the alleged irregularities he claims took place in the voting, although he said that it would have been much easier for him to win the popular vote if he had limited his campaign to three or four states.

“It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4 -- states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!” said Trump in two separate tweets.

Trump said earlier Sunday on Twitter that “nothing will change” as a result of the recount campaign, adding that Clinton “conceded the election when she called me just prior to (my) victory speech and after the results were in.”

In addition, the next day, Clinton telephoned Trump to say that “we have to accept the results and look to the future,” he said, paraphrasing what she had said in one of the presidential debates.

“So much time and money will be spent – same result! Sad,” the president-elect went on to say, via Twitter.

This is the first time that Trump has claimed that illegal votes were cast for Clinton, while all during the campaign he had stated that the election was going to be “rigged” against him and threatened that he might not acknowledge the results if he lost.

According to the latest vote tally, Clinton obtained 64.22 million votes to Trump’s 62.21 million.

Stein’s campaign last Wednesday launched a fundraising effort to finance vote recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, all of which Trump apparently won by narrow margins.

Wisconsin announced on Friday that it will conduct a vote recount in response to the formal request presented by Stein and another independent presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente.

According to the Green candidate’s campaign, there is “compelling evidence of anomalies” in voting in the three states in question and, therefore, it is necessary to verify the results in those states’ counties that depend on electronic voting machines to tally the ballots.

Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, is backing the decision by Wisconsin authorities to conduct the recount despite saying that no irregularities have been detected in the election, and it said that it will also support recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan if the Green Party, as expected, formally requests them.

On Saturday, Trump issued a statement in which he called the Green Party’s effort a “scam.”

JERUSALEM - The Israeli army bombed a building in Syria used to launch an Islamic State-linked attack against a military patrol, said an army statement on Monday.

An Israeli military source told EFE that the Air Force on Sunday hit an abandoned United Nations building which had been used as an operational center by Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, a local organization that swore allegiance to the IS.

Early Sunday morning, the IS opened machine gun and mortar fire against a Golani Brigade patrol on duty in the Golan heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

The Israeli army responded by bombing the vehicle the militants were driving.

The military spokesperson could not confirm the exact number of casualties during the operation.

The Golan Heights have been a hotspot of violence since the Syrian conflict began five years ago, with stray artillery shells often landing on the Israeli occupied zone.

Israel responds by returning fire against the attackers or by shelling Syrian army positions.

The last incident took place on Nov. 9, when Israeli aircraft bombed a series of Syrian positions in response to a shell that hit Israeli occupied territory.

CHILPANCINGO, Mexico – The prosecutor’s office of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero said on Thursday they have recovered 32 bodies and nine severed heads from 20 clandestine graves in Cerro Tenanchitla in Zitlala municipality.

Roberto Alvarez Heredia, spokesperson of the Guerrero Coordination Group, made up of federal and state forces, said experts from the prosecutor’s office and the forensic medical service recovered the human remains, which were taken to the state’s capital, Chilpancingo, to start the process of identifying them.

He added although the excavations of the graves were complete, personnel from the Secretariat of National Defense will continue scanning the area for more clandestine graves.

The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that human remains were found in only 17 of the 20 clandestine graves and that none of the bodies have been identified so far nor any arrests made.

An anonymous tip-off led the police to the graves in Zitlala, where they also rescued alive a kidnap victim and recovered several abandoned vehicles

It is just the latest in a spate of attacks by wolves on dogs in the area, reported the newspaper. In late October two farm dogs that lived outside in nearby A Frouxeira were found dead, having been ripped apart by wolves.

Residents in the region say they are now scared to leave their dogs outside or even let their children play in the garden.

"We know that the wolf is a very protected animal, but how can we dare live like this?" said Díaz.

"People are scared to let their dogs go out and we are afraid for the children," she said.

Spain’s population of Canis lupus signatus, was hunted to the point of near extinction by the middle of last century but thanks to conservation efforts has made a comeback over recent decades.

There are now estimated to be more than 2,000 individual wolves from at least 250 distinct packs roaming Spain, from the mountains of the northern Spain to just 80km of Madrid in the Sierra Norte.

But farmers are not always happy about the conservation efforts complaining that the wolf attacks aredepleting their livestock. Regional governments spend tens of thousands of euros each year compensating their losses.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, announced on Thursday that he will leave the post on Jan. 20, 2017, when President Barack Obama hands over the White House to Donald Trump.

“I submitted my letter of resignation last night, which felt pretty good,” the 75-year-old Clapper said during an appearance before the House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence.

“I got 64 days left and I think I’d have a hard time with my wife anything past that,” he said.

The retired Air Force lieutenant general signaled some time ago that he was ready to leave the government.

Clapper initially stepped away from public life in 1995, but returned to the national security sector following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Obama named him to the post of director of national intelligence in 2010.

As Washington’s spy chief, Clapper had to respond to questions and concerns about the extent of the U.S. intelligence community’s surveillance of private individuals and the issue brought him into conflict with some in Congress.

“During Director Clapper’s tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance. Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them,” Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday in a statement.

In March 2013, during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Wyden asked Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper the following question:

“Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper, who was under oath, responded “No, sir.”

“It does not?” the Oregon Democrat asked again.

“Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly,” the director said.

Three months later, whistleblower Edward Snowden provided documents showing that the U.S. National Security Agency had collected the telephone records of tens of millions of U.S. residents.

MEXICO CITY – Mexicans living in the United States should avoid “conflict situations,” Mexico’s government said Wednesday in a statement about dealing with the possible effects of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.

The triumph of the Republican real estate mogul, who launched his campaign with a speech denouncing Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists,” presents Mexico with a set of potentially major challenges.

In recommendations released by the Foreign Relations Secretariat, Mexican communities in the U.S. are urged “to reinforce dialogue with state and local authorities, on the understanding that local policies determine, to a great degree, the daily lives of Mexicans” north of the border.

Expats are likewise encouraged to strengthen ties with U.S. civil rights organizations.

Mexico’s government also appealed to Mexican communities in the U.S. “to avoid all situations of conflict and not to engage in actions that could lead to administrative or criminal sanctions.”

Since defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton last Tuesday, Trump has retreated from his campaign promise to deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., suggesting instead that he will expel around 3 million people.

Trump also indicated some flexibility about the exact nature of the wall he vows to erect on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The secretariat announced measures to improve communication with Mexicans in the U.S., including the creation of a 24-hour, toll-free telephone hotline to request information or report incidents.

Another response will be to expand the presence of mobile consulates in the U.S. to offer “comprehensive protection and documentation services to a larger number of people in their communities.”

The secretariat said that the embassy and consulates will make it easier to obtain identification documents, such as passports and birth certificates, for the U.S.-born offspring of Mexican citizens.

On the same day that more than 220 million Americans go to the polls, Iranian regime blinded both eyes of a man to punish himAssociated Press cited Iranian media on Nov. 8 that the authorities in Iran on the basis of 'retribution in kind' and 'an eye for an eye' have blinded a man for throwing harmful chemicals in the face of a four-year-old girl back in 2009 that destroyed her vision.The harsh punishment of totally blinding a man, despite happening in rare cases, but still a brutal act to be done by state regardless of the crime. The semi-official Fars news agency affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said Tuesday's punishment was only the second time the Islamic Republic has implemented the 'eye for an eye' legal provision, which was first approved in 1958. In March 20 15 a man convicted of blinding another man in an acid attack was blinded in one eye in a prison near Tehran.

Donald Trump's election as president raises the prospect the United States will pull out of the nuclear pact it signed last year with Iran, alienating Washington from its allies and potentially freeing Iran to act on its ambitions.

Outgoing President Barack Obama's administration touted the deal, a legacy foreign policy achievement, as a way to suspend Tehran's suspected drive to develop atomic weapons. In return Obama, a Democrat, agreed to a lifting of most sanctions.

The deal, harshly opposed by Republicans in Congress, was reached as a political commitment rather than a treaty ratified by lawmakers, making it vulnerable to a new U.S. president, such as Trump, who might disagree with its terms.

A Republican, Trump ran for the White House opposing the deal but contradictory statements made it unclear how he would act. In an upset over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump won on Tuesday and will succeed Obama on Jan. 20.

A businessman-turned-politician who has never held public office, Trump called the nuclear pact a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated" during his campaign and said it could lead to a "nuclear holocaust."

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message of greeting to Donald Trump upon his victory in the US presidential election.

As the Kremlin’s press-service has said Putin expressed the hope "for joint work to steer Russian-US relations out of the critical condition and also to address crucial issues on the international agenda and identify effective responses to challenges to global security."

Putin also expressed the certainty that "a constructive dialog between Moscow and Washington, based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and realistic attitude towards each other’s positions meets the interests of the people of our countries and the entire world community."

Putin wished Trump success in his new capacity as the head of state that implied treat responsibility.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Published: 23 Oct 2016 13:27 GMT+02:00

A Swiss court has ruled against a company that fired a longtime employee after she began wearing the Muslim headscarf, marking one of the first such rulings in Switzerland, media reported on Sunday.

A regional court in Bern ruled last month that a 29-year-old Serbian woman was fired without just cause from a dry cleaning business, and ordered the company to dish out back-pay and damages to her, the Le Matin Dimanche weekly reported.

The woman, identified only as Abida, was fired in January 2015 from a job she had held for six years, after she began wearing the Muslim headscarf, it reported.

Her employer in Bern had told her the headscarf violated hygiene rules, and told her to remove it or be let go.

She reportedly offered to wash her headscarf daily or wear disposable headscarves, but her employer refused.

The Bern court ruled that the company had violated her constitutional right to freedom of expression, according to the paper.

It said wearing a headscarf can only be grounds for termination in cases where it makes it impossible to carry out duties described in the employment contract or if it "substantially affects" the working environment.

The case is one of the first of its kind in Switzerland, Le Matin Dimanche said, pointing to only one other known case dating back to 1990, when a machine manufacturer in the east of the country was also faulted for firing a woman for wearing a headscarf.

Published: 05 Nov 2016 14:11 GMT+01:00

The most senior ETA leader still at large was arrested Saturday in southwest France, Spanish authorities said, dealing another major blow to the embattled Basque separatist group.

Mikel Irastorza, 41, was found in a home in the French town of Ascain, in the Pyrenees region bordering Spain, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The couple housing Irastorza -- a 59-year-old Basque exile and his 56-year-old wife -- were also taken into custody, French sources said.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors in Paris authorised the arrests and the three are due to appear before a judge in the French capital. On Friday French authorities opened a preliminary investigation into alleged criminal association with a terrorist organisation.

The Spanish statement said the raid, led by French security forces working with Spanish police, was aimed at the "leadership structure of ETA".

Irastorza was described by the ministry as "currently the most senior leader of the terrorist group ETA still at large". Spain said other arrests could follow.

Founded in 1959, ETA waged a violent decades-long campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France, and is blamed for the deaths of more than 800 people.

It declared a ceasefire in October 2011 but has refused to give up its weapons, and is seeking to negotiate its dissolution in exchange for amnesties or improved prison conditions for the roughly 350 ETA members held in both countries.

Spain's new Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido, who was only appointed on Thursday, welcomed the arrest.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

MOSCOW - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu urged the West on Tuesday to decide who to fight with in Syria, the terrorists or Russia.

Shoigu made his statements during a press conference with the Russian Armed Forces senior officers.

"It is time that our Western colleagues decide who to actually fight against: the terrorists or Russia," the minister was quoted by Russian media

The defense minister was commenting on the refusal of several countries to allow Russian navy ships, led by aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and heading from the eastern Mediterranean to the coast of Syria, to bring fuel and supplies.

Moscow requested permission from Spain to anchor Russian ships in the Spanish city of Ceuta, but it withdrew this request after the Spanish authorities asked for clarification on the nature of the military participation in Syria.

"To eliminate terrorists in Syria, it is necessary to work together rather than put a spoke into partners' wheel. The gunmen use this for their own benefit," Shoigu explained, according to TASS.

On Aleppo, Shoigu added that Russia has not been using warplanes in Aleppo for 16 days, condemning that the militants killed dozens of civilians for trying to approach the humanitarian corridors.

SAN DIEGO – The U.S. Border Patrol has created a special unit to supplement its agents on the eastern area of the border between San Diego and Mexico, where the presence of criminal organizations engaged in the trafficking, kidnapping and extortion of undocumented immigrants has been detected.

The special unit’s Commander Matthew Dreyer, with more than 20 years in the Border Patrol, told EFE that the area is the most difficult terrain to cover in the San Diego area because of the cliffs, steep peaks, canyons, scrub and other conditions that make it hard to get around.

Traffickers use this route because they think they won’t be seen on their hike north and often don’t tell their victims about the risks of the terrain – and when the Border Patrol is about to catch up with them, the guides tend to flee, leaving their victims somewhere they’ll be unlikely to escape. That way they use the terrain to their own advantage, Dreyer said.

In the same area but south of the border, cases of extortion, kidnapping and rape of migrants have been reported.

For that reason, U.S. authorities work closely with the Federal Police of Mexico in order to wipe out those crimes.

For agent Daniel Parks, this collaboration is an example of the solid relations maintained by security agencies across the border.

They often meet to share information that will allow them to pounce on the people traffickers and combine their strategies for use in their respective jurisdictions.

By patrolling the border together, moving together toward the east, each on his own side of the border, there’s nowhere the criminals can go to get away, Parks told EFE.

Now it becomes clear that the fight for border security does not begin and end with the border wall, Parks said, adding that the only way to fight and defeat this problem at its point of origin, on the traffickers’ route to the border, on the border itself or farther into the United States, is by working closely with the Mexican government.